126 E. C. Case — Amphlhian Fauna at Linton^ Oliio. 



know by their mutilated fragments, served as food for the more 

 powerful. 



A remarkable circumstauce connected with the Linton deposit 

 is this : that in working up some hundreds of tons of the cannel 

 coal which contains the fishes and amphibians, we have obtained 

 not a fragment of an insect, and only a few small and imperfect 

 remains of crustaceans. Mollusks, too, are entirely absent, no 

 shell of an}" kind being found there, except those of Spirorhis, 

 which is thought to have been au annelid. These occur, how- 

 ever, in millions, and we may infer from the multitudes of these 

 delicate organisms that the water they inhabited was quiet, warm, 

 and almost stagnant. Whether salt or fresh, we do not know, 

 but it seems to me most probable that it was fresh. 



Very few remains of plants have been found in the Linton can- 

 nel, and these, if leaves, are skeletonized, showing their long 

 maceration in water. In this, as in many other respects, the 

 Linton deposit is strikingly different from that of Mazon Creek, 

 Illinois, which has yielded a large number of insects, crustaceans, 

 and plants, and very few fishes and amphibians."* 



The first step in the study of the Linton fauna was an at- 

 tempt to determine whether Xewberrj was correct or not in 

 his assumption that the Linton fauna was isolated in a pool of 

 open water in the midst of a great swamp and that this pool 

 was finally closed bv the o^rowth of yeo;etation cansino; the death 

 of the animals. The attempt was made along two lines of 

 evidence ; first, the stratigraphy of the region around Linton 

 and second, the method of formation of cannel coal. 



1. The eiHclence from the stratigraphy. 



The Linton fauna occurs in the Lower Freeport Coal of the 

 Allegheny series of the Fennsvlvanian. To test Kewberry's 

 idea an area of considerable size was selected surrounding the 

 location of the fauna. This included Beaver, Allegheny, 

 Washington, and Greene Counties in Pennsylvania ; Hancock, 

 Brooke, Ohio, and Marshall Counties in West Virginia ; and 

 Columbiana, JefiEerson, Carroll, Harrison, and Belmont Counties 

 in Ohio, as shown on the accompanying map, fig. 1. Many 

 sections of the Allegheny series in this area were plotted and 

 a few of the most detailed are shown in the columnar sections, 

 fig. 2. The location of the sections is indicated by numerals 

 on the map. 



A study of sections 4. 3, 2, and 1, north and east of Linton, 

 show a strong tendency for the Lower Freeport Coal and its 

 accompanying beds to break up, indicating, the edge of the 

 local swamp. From Sprucevale, Columbiana County, Ohio 

 {\ on the map), south of the mouth of the Little Beaver lliver, 



"Newberry, J. S., Geol. Survey of Ohio, vol. ii, pp. 179-180, 1874. 



